London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 07, 2025

8 things to know about the environmental impact of ‘unprecedented’ Nord Stream leaks

8 things to know about the environmental impact of ‘unprecedented’ Nord Stream leaks

Suspected sabotage will release large amounts of methane, but it’s a ‘wee bubble’ compared with what’s emitted globally every day.

The apparent sabotage of both Nord Stream gas pipelines may be one of the worst industrial methane accidents in history, scientists said Wednesday, but it's not a major climate disaster.

Methane — a greenhouse gas up to 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide — is escaping into the atmosphere from three boiling patches on the surface of the Baltic Sea, the largest of which the Danish military said was a kilometer across.

On Tuesday evening, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen condemned the “sabotage” and “deliberate disruption of active European energy infrastructure.”

Here are eight key questions on the impact of the leaks.

1. How much methane was in the pipelines?


No government agency in Europe could say for sure how much gas was in the pipes.

“I cannot tell you clearly as the pipelines are owned by Nord Stream AG and the gas comes from Gazprom,” said a spokesperson for the German climate and economy ministry.

The two Nord Stream 1 pipelines were in operation, although Moscow stopped delivering gas a month ago, and both were hit. “It can be assumed that it’s a large amount” of gas in those lines, the German official said. Only one of the Nord Stream 2 lines was struck. It was not in operation but was filled with 177 million cubic meters of gas last year.

Estimates of the total gas in the pipelines that are leaking range from 150 million cubic meters to 500 million cubic meters.

2. How much is being released?


Kristoffer Böttzauw, the director of the Danish Energy Agency, told reporters on Wednesday that the leaks would equate to about 14 million tons of CO2, about 32 percent of Denmark's annual emissions.

Germany's Federal Environment Agency estimated the leaks will lead to emissions of around 7.5 million tons of CO2 equivalent — about 1 percent of Germany's annual emissions. The agency also noted there are no "sealing mechanisms" along the pipelines, "so in all likelihood the entire contents of the pipes will escape."

Because at least one of the leaks is in Danish waters, Denmark will have to add these emissions to its climate balance sheet, the agency said.

But it is not clear whether all of the gas in the lines would actually be released into the atmosphere. Methane is also consumed by ocean bacteria as it heads through the water column.

3. How does that compare to previous leaks?


The largest leak ever recorded in the U.S. was the 2015 Aliso Canyon leak of roughly 90,000 tons of methane over months. With the upper estimates of what might be released in the Baltic more than twice that, this week's disaster may be "unprecedented," said David McCabe, a senior scientist with the Clean Air Task Force.

Jeffrey Kargel, a senior scientist at the Planetary Research Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said the leak was "really disturbing. It is a real travesty, an environmental crime if it was deliberate."

4. Will this have a meaningful effect on global temperatures?


"The amount of gas lost from the pipeline obviously is large," Kargel said. But "it is not the climate disaster one might think."

Annual global carbon emissions are around 32 billion tons, so this represents a tiny fraction of the pollution driving climate change. It even pales in comparison to the accumulation of thousands of industrial and agricultural sources of methane that are warming the planet.

“This is a wee bubble in the ocean compared to the huge amounts of so-called fugitive methane that are emitted every day around the world due to things like fracking, coal mining and oil extraction,” said Dave Reay, executive director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute.

Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said it was roughly comparable to the amount of methane leaked from across Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure on any given working week.

A leak was reported near the Nord Stream 2 pipeline off the coast of Denmark's Bornholm island


5. Is the local environment affected?


While the gas is still leaking, the immediate vicinity is an extremely dangerous place. Air that contains more than 5 percent methane can be flammable, said Gregor Rehder, a marine biogeochemist and chemical oceanographer at the Leibniz-Institute for Baltic Sea Research, so the risk of an explosion is real. Methane is not a toxic gas, but high concentrations can reduce the amount of available oxygen.

Shipping has been restricted from a 5 nautical mile radius around the leaks. This is because the methane in the water can affect buoyancy and rupture a vessel’s hull.

Marine animals near the escaping gas may be caught up and killed — especially poor swimmers such as jellyfish, said Rehder. But long-term effects on the local environment are not anticipated.

“It's an unprecedented case,” he said. “But from our current understanding, I would think that the local effects on marine life in the area is rather small.”

6. What can be done?


Some have suggested that the remaining gas should be pumped out, but a German economy and climate ministry spokesperson on Wednesday said this wasn't possible.

Once the pipeline has emptied, "it will fill up with water," the spokesperson added. "At the moment, no one can go underwater — the danger is too great due to the escaping methane."

Any repair would be the responsibility of pipeline owner Nord Stream AG, the Germans said.

7. Should they set it on fire?


Not only would it look impressive, setting the gas on fire would hugely slash the global warming impact of the leak. Methane is made of carbon and hydrogen, when burned it creates carbon dioxide, which is between 30 and 80 times less planet-warming per ton than methane. Flaring, as it is known, is a common method for reducing the impact of escaping methane.

From a pure climate perspective, setting the escaping methane on fire makes sense. “Yes, definitely — it will help,” said Piers Forster, director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds.

But there would be safety issues and potential environmental concerns, including air pollution from the combustion. "With land — in particular the inhabited and touristic island of Bornholm — nearby, you would not venture into this," said Rehder.

No government has yet indicated that this is under consideration.

8. How long will it last and what next?


“We expect that gas will flow out of the pipes until the end of the week. After that, first of all, from the Danish side, we will try to get out and investigate what the cause is, and approach the pipes, so that we can have it investigated properly. We can do that when the gas leak has stopped,” Danish Energy Agency director Böttzauw told local media.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×